


these warm summer evenings where we once and again shall meet

by sdwolfpup



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Baseball, F/M, feature or bug? you decide, margaery tyrell makes a brief cameo, there are a lot of baseball-related puns and metaphors here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: This summer, the fourth since they'd parted after college, Jaime's coming for a month, and Brienne's already dreading having to say goodbye at the end of it. But there's no alternative, because they're simply baseball buddies, no matter how many nights Brienne might fall asleep talking to Jaime on the phone about work or how often he texts her random non-baseball thoughts during the day. Regardless of too-long hugs and extended vacation stays.It's been eight years since they met. She's sure she's missed her chance to try to make it anything more, so she's going to be happy with the time she gets. Just as soon as she stops dreaming about him.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 117
Kudos: 382





	these warm summer evenings where we once and again shall meet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brynnmck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my dearest BrynnMcK! This is for you, because I love you, and also as thanks for all that you've done for me. But mostly because I love you. ❤️ Title adapted from Peter Mulvey's "The Knuckleball Suite."

The golden days of summer have always been Brienne's favorite time of year. Not because of the sun, from which she'll inevitably get sunburned, her skin going bright red like a cooked lobster, then pink like a dead lobster, then peeling like a molting lobster – why is she so obsessed with lobsters, anyway? – but because it's the time of year she can play ball late into the evenings until her muscles are sore and her mind is at peace. 

She likes these days even better now, because Jaime always takes a couple of weeks off from his desk job in King's Landing and comes to see her on Tarth while she's on break from her teaching job at Durran High School in Storm's End. 

They've known each other since freshman year in college, when Jaime was at KLU on a baseball pitching scholarship and Brienne was there on a softball pitching scholarship and they overlapped at the gym and on the field and actively disliked each other. 

(“I never disliked you,” Jaime always protests when she tells the story in his hearing. “You just never wanted my advice.” She rarely rises to the bait on this point any more.)

What they both agree on is that Jaime started it, rolling up to the field with his buddies one afternoon with the standard “it's not real baseball” bullshit, which Brienne wouldn't let stand unremarked. 

“Just ignore him,” Margaery warned her with a roll of her eyes. “Lannister just wants attention.”

Not that Jaime needed it; he always had more attention than was entirely good for him: women, scouting agents, the annoyance of his non-sports-loving professors. Brienne didn't ignore him, and her bitingly angry response didn't stop him from coming to as many of their softball practices and games as he could to provoke and poke at her, until one day she accidentally – definitely, totally accidentally – beaned him in the stomach with a ball and he shut up about her arm strength, at least. 

In fact, after that he only seemed to enjoy his time on the sidelines more. Jaime loved to come up with random names to shout at her when she was trying to focus. 

“Hey, Beanpole, watch where you're waving that thing, you might hit the batter from the hill!”

“Windmill, you gonna strike this chick out or what?”

“Spaghetti arms” – that one didn't even make sense – “are you planning on walking everybody this inning until you see them all twice? This isn't a dog show.” 

But her least favorite, and the one he stuck to once he realized it, was Meatball. 

“Didn't know a heater could go that slowly, Meatball,” and “You hit like my grandmother, Meatball,” and “Stop making that face when you throw or you might get stuck that way, Meatball.” 

“My name is Brienne,” she'd protest when she walked off the field, and Jaime would flash her a grin full of bright white teeth and just get back to it again next time. 

He never called the other girls names or critiqued their performances, though Seven knew several of them would have welcomed it. Every time he showed up, golden and shining in the sun while he casually leaned on the low chain-link fence, half the team would start to migrate like the earth was being tipped in his direction. But he never paid them any mind. Just Brienne. 

“How come you never come watch _me_ play?” he asked her once. 

“I just assumed you were too busy harassing me to pitch yourself,” she informed him with an appropriately haughty sniff. 

But she did sneak into the back of the stadium when their competing schedules allowed for it, marveled at the seriousness and concentration he showed on the field that he never showed off of it. As far as she knew, he never caught her watching, never noticed the way she catalogued every sweep of his foot across the mound, every turn of his wrist on his delivery. 

It didn't stop in the summer, either, since they both joined their respective inter-collegiate leagues and Jaime kept coming to her games and she kept hovering at the back of his.

For almost three years this went on, Jaime the star pitcher for his team, Brienne for hers, the two of them engaging in an unspoken but fierce competition to earn the most wins. 

Then the accident happened, and for months Jaime stopped going out at all, until Brienne found him alone on the field late one summer night, throwing angry, wild fastballs into the backstop with his left hand. The flood lights were on and his eyes had glowed nearly as brightly when they focused on her stepping out of the shadows. 

(This, Brienne always points out, is where their friendship really began. Jaime always disagrees. 

“If we weren't already friends, would you even have stopped to talk to me?” 

She's never sure how to answer that question. She likes to think she would have, because he'd looked so wounded when she'd stumbled on him, but she's not sure she's that good of a person given all the shit he'd given her the first year especially.) 

There had been yelling on both their parts, and then a long, serious discussion in the dark, and then they'd laid in the outfield on their backs and watched the sun rise while Brienne admitted she was glad she'd snuck in sometimes to see him pitch. 

“I knew you were there,” he said. “Those are the days I always played my best.”

And that was that. Whether they were friends or not before that night, they were undoubtedly so after. 

Brienne's last year of college, Jaime went to most of her practices and all of her games. She asked for his help on her technique for one last championship season, and he eagerly caught for and coached her in the evenings. Rumor had it that a men's minor league talent scout was keeping an eye on her and she wanted to show she was good enough. Jaime was a good catcher, intuitive about what she needed to hear, knowledgeable about the things that would make her better. The hours she spent on the field with him that year were some of the happiest of her college years, and if she sometimes got distracted watching him with his head thrown back in laughter, that was only natural given he looked like he did. 

None of the extra training made a difference, of course. Not even when her team won the softball college championship and she was selected player of the year. No one was ready to hire a woman to pitch, even in the minors – especially, Baelish was whispered to have said, someone so media unfriendly. So Brienne fell back on her teaching career at the high school, where she taught history classes during the semester and coached the girls' softball team in the spring. 

That left her summers open to do whatever she liked and with her first free summer on the horizon, Jaime called asking if he could visit. They'd stayed in touch with emails and texts and sometimes they'd watch a game together over the phone, but they hadn't seen each other since they'd hugged goodbye at the end of the previous summer, when Brienne had left for Storm's End to start her new job and Jaime had stayed to get on with his at his father's company. 

“I was planning to go home to Tarth for a month to unwind,” she told him.

“Can I visit you there?” 

“Sure,” she said, not believing he would. But she gave him the days she'd be there and her dad's address and he'd showed up with a softball and a catcher's mitt and a smug smile. 

“I didn't want you to fall out of practice, Meatball,” he told her.

Jaime stayed on Tarth for a week that first summer. They watched a minor league game together from overheated metal bleachers, watched whatever major league games they could find on the TV from her dad's old couch, walked the beaches talking about their work, and spent the evenings well into sunset playing catch. His right hand would never be up to the skill he'd had in college, but he could throw with it now, straight sliders and fastballs with a little heat, but mostly he caught for her. Crouched low in the dirt, pounding his fist into the mitt, no mask to hide the enthusiastic smile on his face. His days of insulting her were long past, and now he'd drop compliments as easily as he used to drop sinkers. “Nice one, Meatball, good speed on that,” and “You were a little outside on your curveball but I would have bit on it,” and “Your extension is great, really using all of your height behind it.” 

When it was time for him to head back to King's Landing, they hugged for a lot longer than the summer before, her arms twined around his neck, his arms wrapped around the low of her back. 

“Keep in touch,” she said into his shoulder. 

“I will,” he promised into hers. “You too.”

They did, their conversations as regular as the season – yelling at each other through the phone during the world series, a shared toast on the first day pitchers and catchers reported back, long email dissections of the talent on the field for spring training – and then he came back to Tarth the next summer for two weeks; and three weeks the summer after that. Each time, their hug goodbye started sooner and lasted longer, until they only split apart with the final ferry call, grinning sheepishly. 

This summer, the fourth since they'd parted after college, Jaime's coming for a month, and Brienne's already dreading having to say goodbye at the end of it. But there's no alternative, because they're simply baseball buddies, no matter how many nights Brienne might fall asleep talking to Jaime on the phone about work or how often he texts her random non-baseball thoughts during the day. Regardless of too-long hugs and extended vacation stays.

It's been eight years since they met. She's sure she's missed her chance to try to make it anything more, so she's going to be happy with the time she gets. Just as soon as she stops dreaming about him.

* * *

“You need to ask him out,” Margaery tells her over the phone on the afternoon of Jaime's arrival. Brienne has spent the past hour talking around the issue but Margaery has also spent eight years listening to Brienne talking around Jaime and by the tone of her voice she sounds like she's done with it. 

“We spend the entire time he's here hanging out. What am I going to ask him to do that we don't already do?”

“I think you know,” Margaery says in a sultry voice. 

Brienne blushes bright red. “He's here for a whole month, what if he says no?”

“But what if he says _yes_ , did you think of that?” 

She has, actually, and in quite a lot of detail. Brienne blushes more deeply, her cheeks burning so hot she needs to splash water on her face. “What if he has a girlfriend?”

“Don't you two talk all the time? Has he ever mentioned a girlfriend? A boyfriend? Does he even go on any dates?”

He doesn't, as far as Brienne can tell, though she's never outright asked. When she's told him about a couple of her own failed dates, he's just laughed and sympathized and not talked about any similar experiences at all. 

An unfamiliar car pulls up to the curb outside and parks. Normally she picks Jaime up at the ferry dock, but this year he insisted on bringing his own car. “I'm going to be there a whole month, I can't make you do all the driving,” he'd protested when she said there was no need.

He's not supposed to arrive for another couple of hours at least, but he gets out of the driver's side of the car, tugs at his t-shirt, runs his fingers through his hair, and generally makes himself look so casually handsome Brienne might actually combust just from staring at him. 

“He's here early,” she yelps in surprise at Margaery.

“Sounds like someone is eager to see you.” 

“Maybe he just forgot what time he said he was coming.” Brienne looks down at herself in sweat shorts and an old t-shirt and sighs. “I was going to change, though.”

“Trust me, he doesn't care what you wear. I spent four years watching him salivating over you and those absurd legs of yours.”

“He never salivated,” she hisses, watching him get his luggage out of the back seat and then blink up at the house. Her heart beats a little harder having him there just outside her door. “What am I going to do?”

“Give him a few minutes to get settled and then jump him,” Margaery advises. 

There's a knock at the door and she whispers goodbye and hangs up just as Margaery yells, “I love you and you better kiss him!” When Brienne opens the door she's hit with the wave of _Jaime_ that happens every time they see each other again. He's only gotten more handsome with time, and less arrogant about it, so the sharp line of his jaw is softened by the cheerful pull of his smile and the crinkled happiness around his eyes. 

“Hey, Meatball,” he says and they hug immediately, a quick, warm embrace that Brienne steps out of first or else she'll just stand there on the porch in his strong arms and ask him to spend the entire day that way.

“Come on in,” she says, because this year, for the first time, he's staying with her in her father's house instead of at a nearby motel. Her father is gone on some bucket list, around-the-world vacation he's wanted to take for decades, so Jaime is sleeping in Selwyn's room and Brienne is sleeping in hers and she hadn't thought it was going to be a problem – how much worse can it get, when he already spends the whole day around her anyway – but she knows by the first five steps he takes into the house it's going to be a huge problem.

He sets his rolling luggage by the door and looks around, stretching his arms over his head so a slip of skin shows at his waist and Brienne is captivated by the flash of dark gold hair she sees there. 

“Thirsty?” she squeaks when she manages to wrench her hungry stare away. 

They get food and drinks and Brienne remembers how to act normally around him. There's not as much to catch up on as she always expects there to be, but then they talk several times a week all year, and almost every day during the middle of baseball season, on top of the texting and emails. Settling on her dad's couch is normal, too, Jaime sitting on the right side, Brienne on the left, a respectable distance between them in the middle. The game they watch is also normal – the Storm's End Thunder lose as spectacularly as always – and Brienne is bemoaning the state of their bullpen when Jaime throws her a curveball and scoots onto the middle cushion. 

She stops talking and stares at him. He's encroached on safe space and her dad is nowhere in the house to stop it. He's not even on Tarth. She's not even sure he's in Westeros right now; his travel plan was intense. 

“I missed this,” Jaime says in a voice that comes in low and inside and Brienne swallows hard. 

“The couch?”

Jaime grins. “Watching games with you in person. Getting to actually see how your nose scrunches up when you complain about the shit pitching.”

“They're bad at nurturing talent,” she says automatically. He's moved six inches but it feels like he's moved a mile, right into her heart, and his eyes are as green as the outfield on a sunny afternoon. “Let's go play some catch,” Brienne nearly shouts, standing quickly. 

Jaime watches her and he frowns a little, but he's game as always and they gather up their things and walk down to the ball field at the local high school. It's locked for the summer but she's got a key thanks to her dad, so she lets them in and locks the gate again behind them, the whole field just for her and Jaime.

Brienne's got a tank top on and the sun is high and burning overhead so she stops to apply her first round of sunscreen while Jaime limbers up, pulling his arms across his chest, stretching his dark red King's Landing Kings t-shirt tight across his arms and shoulders. Her hand flails ineffectually at the skin on her back exposed by her racerback tank and Jaime gestures for her to hand him the bottle of lotion. 

“Let me help. Don't want you to be a cooked Meatball,” he says like he does every single year, and she laughs a little like she does every year and hands over the bottle. 

Jaime applying suntan lotion to her back isn't a new experience, but it feels entirely different this year with the unavoidable realization that she wants more than what they've had. Last year she'd gotten a very unexpected fluttering in her stomach every time he'd done it, and this year her butterflies have expanded into full-grown dragons. The lotion is cool and his hands are warm as they rub in deep circles along her shoulders, the top of her spine, up her neck. His fingers dip under the straps of her tank top, the soft pads of his fingertips following the curve of fabric around her shoulder blades and she feels the pressure all over her body, the warmth pooling low and hot between her legs. When he abruptly clears his throat and steps away, Brienne exhales loudly. She hadn't even been aware she'd been holding her breath. 

“Thanks,” she says, somehow, though it feels like every molecule of air in her body has left her. 

“You're welcome,” he says and he clears his throat again. She turns to ask if he wants some water but he's got his back to her and is walking towards a water fountain a short distance away. 

“I brought water for you, too,” she calls after him but he just waves her off. 

After that, the afternoon is more what Brienne is used to, with a few notable exceptions. Jaime starts out by giving her genial crap for her form – “I know your legs are long, Meatball, but you could try to lift them a _little_ when you pitch” – and she returns it later with equal enthusiasm when he drops one of her fastballs in the dirt. 

“Desk job making your hands weak, Lannister?” she taunts him. 

“I'd be happy to show you how strong my fingers are,” he retorts, and his grin is more challenge than joking. That's a new look and one that she can feel like a flame even with all the distance between them and Brienne nearly drops the ball herself when he casually tosses it back to her. 

They're out there for hours, until her arm is tired and they're both covered in sweat. Jaime took his shirt off an hour ago and he's done that before, too, but this summer Brienne is hyper aware of every flex of his muscles beneath his tanned, gleaming skin and she drinks her entire water bottle in response. It doesn't help quench any of the heat burning inside her, but it does give her a reason to escape him for a few minutes to run to the bathroom. She splashes a lot of water on her face and over her hair, until it's dripping down her back and she feels, mostly, in control again. 

By the time she gets back, the sun is dipping low on the horizon and Jaime has a bat he's taking practice swings with, his entire, naked torso twisting with the movement and she halts halfway there and just watches him. He's brought extra balls, too, and he tosses one up and hits it softly with an easy athleticism that makes her mouth water. The sunlight lingers on the planes of his chest, the wind tousles his hair, his feet are straddling home base in a confident, spread stance. Brienne thinks she has an out-of-body experience for a moment when he catches sight of her and tucks the bat over his shoulder and stares at her like he's the one entranced. 

She wipes a hand over her wet hair to smooth it down and then slides her palm down her thigh to dry it off and his eyes follow every movement. She feels the pressure of his gaze like a caress and she's not sure what's happening but she knows what she wishes would happen. 

“Ready for some batting practice?” he asks. 

“What?” she manages to say, very suavely. 

“I know we usually focus on pitching, but you've got to learn to hit.” 

That snaps her back to her body and she starts walking again, frowning at him. “I know how to hit, Jaime.” 

“You hit like a pitcher.”

“ _You_ were a pitcher.” 

“Yeah, but I was a great hitter, too.”

He was, which is annoying. 

“Anyway,” he continues, holding the bat out to her, “I figured since I was here for longer this summer, we'd try some different positions.” 

Brienne flushes immediately at that and she blames Margaery for putting the idea of it in her head in the first place. “Sure,” she mumbles, taking the bat. She waves him back and grips the wood tightly, tries not to think too hard about _gripping_ and _wood_ in any other context, and takes a few practice swings herself. It's not entirely unfamiliar – she does sometimes provide batting pointers to the high school team as part of her coaching duties – but it's been almost two months since the season ended and she's missed the way the bat feels like an extension of her arms. The wood is smooth in her palms and the stretch of muscles in her torso feels good as she takes a few more swings. She looks over at Jaime. “You gonna pitch?” 

He blinks rapidly, his cheeks pink. He looks like she startled him awake. “What?”

“Pitch, dummy. Are you gonna throw some balls at me using your hands?”

“How else do you want me to throw balls at you?” he asks and the question hits the ground like a dropped fly and they both just leave it lie. “Let me grab a few.”

Brienne can't tell if he's been practicing since last summer or if her libido really is making her whole body react like an awkward teenager, but he strikes her out easily and then pumps his fists in the air, cheering himself and running in a victory circle on the mound while she tries not to laugh. 

“Try it again, ace,” she tells him, and he stops and gives her a wicked grin that makes her want to do any number of non-baseball related things to and with him. 

She forces herself not to focus on the curve of his shoulder or the sharp lines of his profile as he stands parallel to her, gauging her stance, looking like he's reading some invisible catcher signal behind her. Her attention sticks this time and she catches the tip of his fastball with her bat and fouls to the side. 

“Better,” he says and then he throws another strike and makes a pitying face at her. “Worse.” 

Brienne grinds her teeth and re-settles her stance, tapping the end of the bat into the dirt, taking a practice swing, rolling her shoulders in preparation. She _will_ hit it this time, she can feel the home run like an expectant ghost, except he says, “You look sexy as fuck holding that bat, Meatball,” right before he pitches and she just watches the ball go by in shock. 

“Strike three, you're out,” he announces cheerfully. 

They stare at each other across the distance between home base and the pitcher's mound. It's sixty feet but she swears she can feel his radiating heat from here. 

“What did you say?” she asks. 

Jaime looks at her innocently. “I said you're out.” 

“No, not--” Brienne points the bat at him. “What did you say before that?”

“Strike three.”

“ _Jaime_ ,” she says, and is startled by how much her voice is a growl. 

“I said you looked sexy.” He lifts his chin, challenging her to tell him he's wrong. 

It's getting dark now, and most of his face is shadowed by the sun setting behind the tall trees over his shoulder. But she can hear him just fine on the quiet field. It's just the two of them here with the air growing heavy. 

“Why would you say that?”

“Because it's true.” 

“It's never been true before.” 

“Yes it has,” he says and it's a good thing it's quiet because his voice is soft now. There's still sixty feet between them but he covers it in a second and she holds the bat out, poking the fat round end into his bare chest. 

Now that he's near, she can see there's a new light in his eyes, something nervous and hopeful. 

“You were just trying to distract me,” she accuses him. 

“Partly.”

“What was the other part?”

Jaime tilts his head a little. “I've wanted to tell you that for eight years. It seemed like it was time.” 

She lets the bat drop a little and he doesn't move so she drops the tip all the way to the ground between their feet. “Oh,” she says. 

“You should let me give you some pointers, though. You've always had a weird grip and I hate to think of you teaching future generations the same thing.” 

“My grip is fine,” she grumbles, still off-balance enough that when he comes around behind her she's not fully aware of what's happening until his arms are suddenly on either side of her body and she can feel his chest against her back. 

“This feels very cliché,” she says because she doesn't know what else to do. 

“It probably is,” he murmurs near her ear. “But is it okay?”

She's wrapped in the frame of his body and she thinks she'd be happy to stay here all summer. “Yeah,” she says. 

“Good.” Jaime's hands cover hers on the low neck of the bat, his fingers not quite as long as hers but close, and definitely as strong. His arms press all along the length of her own – wrist, elbow, bicep – and she can feel the skin of his chest with her shoulders. It's rough and smooth all at once, as much a contradiction as Jaime has always been. She resists arching back into him like a needy cat. “And what about this?” he asks before his hips are firm against her ass and he's not just holding wood with his hands, she realizes. 

“Oh,” she says again. It feels...he feels...she's going to find words for all of this _wanting_ any second. 

“Eight years, Brienne,” he says, his breath hot against her neck. “Eight years I've been watching you with your killer thighs and your amazing arms and your I-don't-even-have-words-for-it neck. I think that's long enough, don't you?” 

Brienne swallows. She nods. His hands tighten around hers on the bat and, absurdly, he guides her to bring it back, using his feet and knees to adjust her stance. She is hyper-aware of his erection still hard against her, but she lets him re-position her body for batting. 

“What are you doing?” she whispers. 

He laughs low against her skin. “Honestly, I don't know. I didn't plan this far out. I thought you'd have punched me by now.” 

She turns her head and he's right there, his lips so near her face she only has to lean her head back and she can kiss him, like she's been thinking about doing with increasing frequency since last summer. Maybe even since that dark night when he told her his secrets and they became friends. Possibly since he sauntered over to the softball field and argued with her with a cocky smile on those same lips. 

“I don't think you should teach me anything,” she says, “your follow through is terrible.” Then she does lean back and kiss him, and his body tightens all around her, their fingers grinding into the bat together when he moans into her mouth and deepens the kiss. The point of the bat falls to the ground and then it clatters to the base entirely as she turns in Jaime's arms and slides a hand into his hair, as he slips his hands to her ass and pulls her closer. 

It's a kiss that's worth the years of waiting, especially when he runs his hands under her tank top, drawing his fingers up the valley of her back and making her shiver. He tastes like sunshine and baseball and Brienne is already gone over the wall for him. Jaime applies himself with equal enthusiasm to her jaw and her neck as he does her mouth and he groans when she digs into his hips and holds him tightly against her. Kissing him is the same exhilarating crack of a homer, the breathless run around the bases until her body is quivering. He's tugging at her shirt now, trying to pull it off and she puts her hands on his bare chest and they break apart. Jaime's lips are red and wet and she can feel his heart pounding under her palm. 

“Are you gonna punch me now?” he asks and she laughs a little. 

“If I didn't punch you for calling me 'Meatball,' I'm not going to punch you for that kiss.” 

“You've always been far too nice to me.” 

“That's true. You should make it up to me,” she says and his hands tighten around her waist. 

“I will,” he promises and he mouths along her collarbone until she gently pushes him away again. 

“Not here,” she says and she can see the effort it takes him to nod and step away from her. He adjusts himself in his loose cargo shorts and Brienne congratulates herself on not staring at his erection like she's never seen a dick before. She hasn't seen _many_ , and she's certainly never seen _his_ , but there's no need to act like a rookie. 

“Your house?” he asks, and the desire and want and need are all swirled together, salty-sweet like cotton candy and crackerjacks and she grabs his hand and drags him in the opposite direction of her home, towards the outfield where it's dark under the treeline, the low lighting and the setting sun unable to reach that far. 

When they're way out near the back wall and it feels like no one can see them, Brienne takes a chance and palms his mildly confused dick and Jaime gasps into her ear. 

“ _Here?_ ” he asks, and she laughs a little at the utter astonishment in his voice. 

“Where else?” she says, because it feels right. 

Jaime, for his part, doesn't need any further encouragement and he's got his hand inside her shorts before she can take another breath, his fingers finding her seam with the same confidence he has with a baseball. He curves his fingers into her and she keens a little at how they fit all along her, how quickly he finds the places that make her have to bite into the salty line of his shoulder. 

Brienne puts her hand down his shorts, too, and now she's thinking very explicitly of _grips_ and _wood_ and he's hot and hard in her hand, and shuddering with every pull. 

“Wait,” he breathes as she feels him swell in her fist and she stills but doesn't let him go. “Can we-- in my wallet I've got a condom, if you're--”

“Yes,” she cuts him off. “Where's your wallet?”

“Duffel bag.”

Brienne pants into his neck and then looks around. “It's back at home base.” 

“That feels appropriate,” he says, laughing a little. 

“I'll get it,” she says. “I'm faster than you.” 

She grins at his annoyed little “hey!” and runs for the bag, grabbing it and her own and cradling them against her chest as she runs back. 

He's still standing with his hands on his hips when she jogs up, his eyes narrowed in mostly mock offense. “Tomorrow we're going to see who's faster,” he says even as he grabs his bag from her and roots around in it, coming up quickly with his wallet and then a condom and tossing everything else to the ground. 

Her body is one eager tremor as they both stare at the foil packet in his hand. 

“You're sure about this?” Jaime asks her. “I don't want to force you into anything. I was going to wait until the last day of my trip to even try, but then I thought about being around you all that time and I figured I'd swing for the fences.” 

“Well, batter up,” she says and she feels dumb even as she says it but he smiles in delight and Brienne takes the condom from his hand and rips it open. “I hope you brought enough for the month,” she tells him, and his breath shudders out of him even has he yanks her close to kiss her again. 

Jaime lays her down on the grass still warm from the sun and he lifts her shirt and she tugs down his shorts and the condom nearly slips from her fingers three times before she gets it on him because his mouth on her breasts keeps her arched and gasping. 

Finally, she's got the condom on and he's frantically pulling at her shorts and underwear and he rises up above her, glowing even in the deepening darkness, before he slides slowly into her wet center. 

“Ah, fuck,” he moans, pressing his forehead to hers once he's fully inside. Brienne cants her pelvis up towards him with a desperate whimper and he reads her signals, thrusting in short, fast, overwhelming jerks before he changes the play, slowing to a long, thorough pace that pulls her apart. “Just like that,” he whispers, encouraging her. “I've got you.” She shoves her wrist in her mouth when he pulls her leg up over his shoulder and tilts his hips in a way that has her nearly screaming. 

Brienne is still riding the jolting intensity of it when Jaime groans from deep in his belly and then cries out himself, not bothering to muffle his own noises. They echo off the wall and bounce back towards the bleachers where they fall between the metal slats with all the other sounds of this place. He trembles over her, though his hands fused to her hips have not eased an inch. Brienne is shaky and sated and she rubs her palms over Jaime's sweat-soaked chest, marveling that they're here, from one outfield to another with all those innings in-between. Eventually Jaime stills and pulls out of her with a last hissing breath and gently puts her leg back on the ground, smoothing his palm down the length of it when he does. 

She's still got her other leg tangled in her underwear, and his bottoms are shoved down to his knees but he lies down at her side as he is, nuzzling into her hair. 

Brienne smiles up at the dark blue sky above them. She spots the first star of the evening, twinkling merrily. “We should have done this sooner,” she says.

Jaime chuckles ruefully in her ear. “I should have tried the bat thing years ago. If I'd known, I never would have waited this long.” 

“I hope it met your expectations,” she jokes, her voice far too weak and nervous. 

His hand travels in soft, steady circles over her stomach and chest. “You could never disappoint me,” he says, his lips pressed to her shoulder. 

They lay on the outfield grass and look up at the stars, and it is so very similar to and yet so very different from their first moment of real connection years ago, that she almost laughs. The grass is starting to make her back itch. 

“What happens next?” she directs towards the sky. 

“Next we go back and try this again in your bed.”

Brienne turns her head, but it's hard to make out any details now even with him so near. “And after that?” she pushes. 

“I'll need a break, but the couch, I guess?”

She snorts and kisses him tenderly. “At the end of the month,” she explains. “You go back to King's Landing and I go back to Storm's End.” 

“Or,” he says, lifting himself up on one elbow, “you go back to Storm's End and so do I, to start my new job as baseball coach for Storm's End State University.” 

“What?” Brienne gapes at him. 

“I might have gotten an offer from them a couple of weeks ago. I told them I'd think about it, and they gave me until the end of the month to decide.” She sits up and punches him in the shoulder. “Ow,” he grunts, rubbing his arm. “What was that for?”

“Why didn't you tell me? That's amazing!” 

“Remember the punching thing? What if you'd done that to my pretty face instead when I made my move? I couldn't work at SESU then.” 

She frowns. “I wouldn't have kept you from taking the job.”

“I know you wouldn't have, but I couldn't have been so close to you if I'd messed this up. I was thinking a hasty retreat followed by a slow fade into obscurity.”

“Is that why you brought your own car this year?” she asks, trying not to smile and failing as usual. 

“A man's gotta cover his bases, Meatball.” He skims his hand across her breasts and kisses her softly along the small swell of them. “Speaking of bases,” he murmurs, “I know we jumped straight to home, but I'd be happy to back up to at least second.” 

“Please stop talking about baseball while you're kissing me like that or I will never be able to coach again.” She feels his small laugh against her skin. 

“I think you ruined that for yourself by having sex on the field.” 

She sighs. “You're probably right. A burden I'm happy to bear, though.”

"Like me?" Jaime asks playfully.

"You could never be a burden," she tells him, serious, and he kisses her again with something like relief.

They get dressed quickly. Jaime ties up the used condom and pockets it with a resigned shrug to dispose of it later, and they walk hand-in-hand back to her dad's house in the dark, where Jaime makes a good start on being much nicer to her. 

The weird part, Brienne realizes as she follows his car with her own onto the ferry a month later, is that not much else changes. He still calls her Meatball, she still gives him buckets of crap when her Thunder sweep his Kings in a mid-month three-game series, and they still talk about work and baseball and the aggressive seagulls stealing people's food at the beach like they always did. 

The biggest changes are that they do more of it in various stages of undress, they follow a lot of it up with enthusiastic sex, and they're still hugging each other when the ferry unlatches from the dock and sails for home.


End file.
